


i want to jump your bones (and also kiss you sweetly)

by teampancakes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Egypt, Emotional Hurt, M/M, Marauders, Reunions, and emotions, basically it's set in a universe where voldemort never existed and nothing happened to the potters, i guess thats all, idk how to do tags properly, lots of angst tbh, remus is very patient, sirius is bad at feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 10:58:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12982611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teampancakes/pseuds/teampancakes
Summary: sirius is good at running away from his feelings but remus is never-endingly patient. or, the one where sirius meets remus after seven years and it still feels the same.





	i want to jump your bones (and also kiss you sweetly)

**Author's Note:**

> this was going to be the second part to my previous wolfstar fic 'the repeated image of the lover;' but stuff wasn't matching up and this story got a mind of its own and decided to break free and be its own thing. so i let it. it's HELLA angsty but it has a happy (read: hopeful) ending so.

They meet again in Egypt, of all places. It’s hot and humid and Sirius is sweating like a pig when he looks up from his guidebook and spots the all-too-familiar ruffled brown hair. His heart immediately shoots up his throat and merrily lodges itself there as the past seven, empty years flash through his mind like an old and grainy black and white film.

Remus isn’t looking at him so Sirius takes a moment to hungrily feast his eyes on the sharp profile of his nose, the plain mouth that has grown a little harder than when Sirius last saw it, and the few smooth wrinkles that age has now adorned his face with. To Sirius, however, he’s still painfully beautiful and his hands curl tighter around the spine of his guidebook, ghost-memory of his ragged brown curls dancing across the pads of his fingers instead of registering the slick, laminated cover of the book.

Their guide is saying something about how to stay safe from the heat but Sirius is barely listening, his eyes now roaming over the thin cotton fabric of Remus’s shirt, stretched a little snugly over the barest hints of muscle. Remus had always been lean and slim, bordering on the side of scrawny and bony. The little muscle he did have, however, had been deliciously situated into pecs and abs that Sirius still remembers the taste of (faint sweat, a whiff of something earthy and a little mint from the special soap he insisted on using because ‘his skin was very delicate’). Sirius is a little surprised that even after seven years, the reaction his body has to Remus’s is the same as it had when they were young and too stupid to think about what they had.

It’s when their group finally starts to move off towards the desert that Remus Lupin finally glances around and catches Sirius’s eye. An expression of shock passes over his face for barely a second before his eyebrows furrow hurtfully and his mouth droops. He turns away from Sirius and heaves his rucksack more securely over his shoulder before marching over to the front of the group. Sirius snatches his own backpack from the dusty pavement near his feet and shoving the guidebook into the pocket of his shorts, he hurries to follow him.

“Wait! Remus!” he shouts when the taller man is within hearing distance. From the way he squares his shoulders, Sirius can tell that he heard him but chose to ignore it.

_Fuck_. Sirius swears under his breath as the heat starts to beat down on him. They’ve moved into the desert now and the pyramids shimmer on the horizon, pulsating in the heat. The guide, who turns back to look at the group, spots Sirius’s bare head and bellows at him, “You! Wear your goddamned hat! Do you want to die of the heat?”

Sirius remembers throwing his wide brimmed straw hat into his backpack before they started on their journey, and stops to wrestle it out of there. The group moves on, spilling around him like he’s a rock in the middle of a stream, and by the time he’s jammed the hat onto his shaggy black hair best as he could, he’s pretty much at the rear of their little party.

_Fuck!_ He swears again, this time a little louder. A prim looking woman next to him turns to glare at him and he sticks her tongue out at her childishly as he quickens his pace. He’s going to catch up to Remus even if it bloody well kills him. The offended woman is left behind, fanning herself with some silly little pamphlet and Sirius heaves a sigh of relief as he finally makes it to the middle of the fifty-strong group of people, catching sight of Remus’s orange rucksack.

“Remus Lupin!” he cries out, skirting a small boy and his mother who had begun to slow down. He still doesn’t turn around and now Sirius is feeling a little annoyed. He’s out of breath and running through what is meant to be a walking tour. The heat is beating down on his exposed shoulder blades because he’s put his hat on backwards and the sweat is pouring off of him in rivulets. He feels sticky and the sand is getting into his bits because his shorts’ legs are too wide and his shirt is too thin to stop the thin sleet of sand from attacking his every nook and cranny. He wonders why Egypt had sounded like a good plan in the first place.

“HEY!” he shouts, finally catching up to Remus and hooking an angry finger around the first loop he sees sticking out of his rucksack. Digging his heels into the shifting sand is harder than it sounds but after a second it works and Remus’ pace is slowed down by the extra weight hanging onto him.

“What?” Remus finally turns to look at him with steel grey, cold eyes. Sirius thinks the contrasting temperature of their environment makes them look even icier than he remembers.

“Are you going to ignore me now?” Sirius asks, his voice coming out laced with just a hint of hurt. He hadn’t intended that.

Remus Lupin gives him a glare before turning back around and trying to keep walking at his previous pace. Sirius is stubborn, however. He reels Remus back once again and uses the hindrance to pull himself up to walk next to him.

“I’m fine,” Remus finally says after a minute of them walking in silence. Perhaps he’s realized that Sirius will not give up until he’s gotten what he wanted.

“That’s a quick response to a question I didn’t ask,” Sirius notes with an amusement which infuriates Remus.

“Well of course you hadn’t asked. When did you ever?” he bites out, the words falling flat but the emotion behind them starkly clear. He feels Sirius slow down slightly, falling back. Remus pauses and looks back at him, his face expressionless.

“I did. You don’t remember but I did,” Sirius says heatedly.

“Not when it bloody counted!” Remus half-shouts, shocking everyone else around them.

“You git –“ Sirius starts, voice low and eyes narrowed. Remus laughs incredulously and cuts him off.

“Oh don’t you fucking dare!” he snarls, throwing Sirius’s hand off his arm in what probably had been an attempt to placate him.

Sirius backs off, his face falling a little and his eyes downcast. Of course Remus is right. He’d never been perfect – he’d never lived up to his expectations. “I’m sorry, Remus,” he murmurs, feeling chilly all of a sudden, even though they were standing in the middle of a desert.

“Twelve years, Sirius!” Remus’s voice cracks with unexpressed emotion. “We were in the middle of fucking Christy’s, picking out goddamned _china!_ ” Sirius still remembers the day as clearly as if it’d happened yesterday. Remus and him, wrapped up in one long scarf, giggling at the passersby’s narrowing eyes at their blatant PDA. Remus picking out the most ridiculous wedding presents for James and Lilly and Sirius almost breaking a plate but whipping out his wand just in time. Remus, eyes shining, getting down on one knee and holding up a key to his apartment. The panic that had nearly choked him and how running away had seemed like the only best option.

“I freaked out,” Sirius says, squaring his shoulders inwards and feeling his heart sink at Remus’s disappointment. “It was too much too fast. And with James –“

Remus narrows his eyes dangerously and holds up a hand, “Don’t make this about James and Lily, Sirius.”

“With James getting fucking married and you wanting us to move in, it felt like my whole world was shifting!” Sirius shouts because guilt has melted into anger that he knows is unfounded and baseless but it’s easier than owning up and letting his emotion get the best of him, so he takes anger instead.

“Did running away make it all fall back into place?” Remus asks with a hint of venom. Sirius reels back a little as if Remus had physically hurt him.

“No. no, it didn’t.” He doesn’t meet Remus’s eyes but looks down at his black, combat boots instead.

“I didn’t think so.” He sounds a little contrite and Sirius regains a little bit of his hope.

“It’s not my fault,” Sirius says, heart beating fast as he tries to place a hand on Remus’s arm again. He barely has time to skim his palm over the well-toned muscle before Remus throws it off again in a rage.

“It’s never your bloody fault is it? You’ve always been afraid of reality, Sirius Black. Never owning up to your own mistakes. Twisting words, wielding them like knives and balancing on their sharp edges, unaware of how much like your parents you turned out to be.”

With eyes wide and hurt, Sirius whispers, “I am nothing like my parents.”

“You think you’re not but you’re exactly like them! Not a care in the world about the people around you, always thinking only about yourself and nobody else,” Remus continues, letting them fall into the slow, sick tango of hurting each other.

“That’s not true. I cared about you. I still do.” Sirius’s voice is broken and small.

“You’re lying. You let seven years go by without even an owl to let me know where the fuck you had disappeared to. You’ve never cared about me, Sirius,” Remus shakes his head and takes several steps backwards. “If you had, you wouldn’t have done what you did. Please leave me alone.”

Sirius watches Remus turn his back and walk away slowly, in the opposite direction to the one the guide had gone. Stuck in the middle, Sirius feels unmoored and lost.

***

The nights in the desert are as cold as the days are hot. Shivering and unable to sleep, Sirius grabs a beer from the mini-fridge and his blanket from the bed. Wrapping it around his shoulders and uncapping the bottle, he takes a swig and walks outside to the back porch. There’s nobody around. It’s nearly two am, and the wind cuts across his face like a knife. He takes another swig and looks around.

Over in the far corner of the porch is a huddled figure on one of the lounge chairs. He’s also wrapped in a blanket and is holding a can of diet soda. Sirius recognizes the posture and easy, slow movements well before he makes out Remus’s face. Hesitating for only a second, he sets his shoulders and decides to walk over to him.

If Remus notices him approach, he doesn’t turn his head. When Sirius enters his line of sight, he only gives him a glazed-over look and a small, almost imperceptible nod. Sirius sets his beer down on the ground and settles down onto the lounge chair next to him.

For several long minutes, they don’t say anything. Then Sirius clears his throat.

“I wanted to come back, Moony. I wanted to come back the minute I left,” he says softly. The pet name from their childhood still feels just as sweet on his tongue.

“But you didn’t.” Remus sounds tired and his voice feels dull and flat. Sirius swallows.

“You didn’t let me finish. I wanted to but I _couldn’t_.”

At that, Remus looks at him, eyes expressionless. “Why not?” he asks in a tone that makes it clear that he doesn’t expect Sirius’s answer to be anything other than utter bullshit.

Sirius takes a long swig of his beer before he starts. “I was so upset I apparated into the wrong alley, straight into the middle of a major drug deal. The dealer was not pleased. The customer freaked and backed out and the dealer blamed me. Rightly so, I guess,” he adds as an afterthought as he fiddles with some stray threads hanging from his blanket.

“I let his thugs beat me up because the pain felt good. With every blow they struck, I felt more alive,” Sirius smiles sardonically. “The thrum of the blood running panicked in my veins, the hard fists and the cool metal of the barrel of their guns – they were too stupid to even use their wands, or maybe they saw just how much damage just your everyday physical violence was causing. Either way, I had lost my wand in the scuffle. The main dude had had the brains to pick it up and break it clean in half.”

Remus’s expression is horrified but he doesn’t say anything so Sirius continues. “I think they kept me for two years, cooped up in a basement. Got me to act as a mule a couple times. They had a Dementor they used to keep me just clinging onto the barest threads of life.” At this, Remus gets up and even though the lounge chairs are too narrow to support two grown men, sits next to Sirius and leans in to feverishly press cold blue lips against his own. His hands grip the edges of Sirius’s blanket and pull it closer around him and Sirius grabs hold of Remus’s shirt and hangs on as if for dear life. When they part, breathing hard and fast, Remus is crying silently and Sirius can feel the tears on his own face from where Remus brushed against it.

“I’m so sorry, Sirius,” Remus whispers against his neck, holding him tightly.

“By the time a kindhearted soul accidentally found its way into their ranks and my prison, I was a husk of a person. Barely alive, the only thing that had kept me sane was the memory of you,” Sirius admitted, his eyes burning a little too. He wipes at his face furiously and presses his forehead against Remus’s.

“A fireplace and cuddling in that cruel winter right after we graduated. The first time I saw you in that back alley of Hogsmede, sucking that poor guy’s brains out through his dick, and realized you played for the same team I did. Those nights we spent sneaking around James’ bed to snuggle up in either of ours. The fights, Remus, all the fights and all the times I’d hurt you and cut you up into ribbons so fine you could top a fancy, posh-ass gift with them,” Sirius is shaking his head, his breath hitching. Remus is still crying silently and the tears are freezing on his cheeks, creating little icy tracks.

“I got out but I didn’t come back. I didn’t feel good enough for you. I realized I never had.” Sirius says a little bitterly. Remus shakes his head and mutters, “You’ve always been good enough” over and over under his breath.

Sirius feels his thoughts slow down as Remus cups his face and smashes their mouths together once more. It feels like there’s a war inside Sirius but the ache between his legs takes precedence and he pulls Remus off and up to his feet, suggesting they go back to his room where it’s warmer. It’s easier to fall back into the familiar pattern of sex than confront his feelings fully. At that point, he’s too hazy with desire for Remus’s rough hands and well-practiced mouth to think about what it all means.

When they reach Remus’s room and Sirius has locked the door and turned the heat back on, he turns to Remus and crashes his lips so hard against his that he feels Remus’s nose crack with the force of his own nose smashing against it. Horrified, he springs back but Remus’s brain hasn’t registered the pain yet and his eyes are still closed. A second later, when he finally realizes the sticky spread of the blood gushing from his nostrils is the cause of the sharp pain shooting up the bridge of his nose, he steps backwards and utters a profanity so obscene that even Sirius, who has the potty mouth of a sailor most of the time, is shocked.

“Bloody hell, Sirius,” Remus mutters as he reaches for his wand to repair his nose. Sirius is now murmuring apologies and reaching for his own wand, for he doesn’t even know what. But Remus has it under control and his nose is back to normal within a few seconds, all the blood siphoned off. Except for the tiny bump on the ridge, Sirius would never even have been able to tell that he’d just broken his nose kissing him.

Remus pockets his wand, smiling a little wryly. “Well, we always were explosive.”

_Damn right they were_ , Sirius thought, cupping his stubbly jaw again and tilting his head this time so as to keep from banging his nose into Remus’s. It’s been years since he’s tasted the sweet slick taste of his tongue press against the edge of his teeth, but he falls into the dizzying headiness of it without a second thought.

The lanky frame that now is pinning him against the nearest wall is familiar under his roaming hands. Only the stubble is new and Sirius delights in its rough scratch against the plane of his own cheek. There’s a desperation in Remus’s touch which doesn’t let him linger at any one spot too long. In the back of his mind, Sirius finds himself thinking about how he’d like to do this slower and a thousand times again, over a thousand lifetimes. The sentimental feelings he so loathes bubble up in his chest, even as Remus’s calloused fingers pinch his nipples and he feels them peak painfully into hard, sensitive nubs that make the blood shoot down into his groin with every soft swirl of his thumb over them.

It’s like bile, the sourness of it makes him choke a little as he keeps fighting against it, ignoring it to tug at Remus’s shirt instead, helping him take it off. Remus hasn’t noticed anything yet because he’s now nipping hard at Sirius’s neck, leaving purple berry stains in his wake.

“Stop, please,” Sirius finally manages to gasp, both hands on Remus’s shoulders, pushing him away and doubling over with the weight of it all. It’s been years and Remus still means the same to him. The heavy burden of how this is not just sex, how it’s never just been sex no matter how much he pretended it was, is crushing him and he blindly gropes for the door, hating himself for doing this a second time to the man he loves so intensely it’s a permanent ache just below his ribs. Except instead of diminishing over time, it has just grown spitefully enormous, creaking up and down the staircase of his heart.

“Not again, Sirius Black!” Remus snarls, throwing his whole body across the door. His eyes are narrowed and he looks positively dangerous. It makes it easy to hate him for what he makes Sirius feel.

“You are _not_ walking out on me again, do you understand?” Remus punctuates every word with a jab to Sirius’ chest. “I will not be subject to another unexplained departure just because something from your fucking past is haunting you and you feel the urge to flee.”

“You can’t fix me,” Sirius says harshly but he’s given up on trying to move Remus so he can access the door.

“I don’t want to bloody fix you, you absolute twat,” Remus shouts. “I just want to fucking be able to make you feel _happy_ for once in your life!”

Sirius steps back and his features shift into an expression of shock before turning back into one of anger and self-loathing. “ _Happy_ ,” he snorts.

Remus throws his hands up in frustration. “Yes, _happy_ , you git. I know you were happy with me, forget whatever haunted you. I’ve seen your bloody smile, Sirius, the carefree one which you hardly ever let out. I’ve held you while you slept, I’ve seen your face in repose. You look like goddamned poetry when you sleep.”

Sirius doesn’t reply. He only looks at Remus with narrowed eyes that fail to hide the fact that he’s actually listening to him for once. So Remus presses on, choosing his words carefully. “I don’t know what it is that stops you from giving into this fully. I don’t even know if it’s not a waste of time trying to find out so that you can live a fucking normal, happy life. But oh god, am I willing to try. I love you Sirius Black. There’s no other way around it. I loved you the day you got me the signed copy of that first edition Tolstoy. I loved you the day we picked out bloody china patterns. I loved you in all the spaces and unsent letters these past few years, and I still love you, goddamn it.”

Sirius looks like he’s been kicked repeatedly in the gut. Remus takes a step forward and reaches out hesitantly. When his hand lands on Sirius’ shoulder, Sirius doesn’t move. So Remus pulls him in closer, sliding his other hand around his waist and up his back, settling into the soft waves of his hair at the nape of his neck. Sirius’s head slots perfectly under his chin and he crushes the shorter man’s body against his so tightly that he fears Sirius might not even be able to breathe. But the need to hold him, to envelope his body with his, is so overwhelmingly strong that he doesn’t think too much about it.

Sirius remains stiff and straight in his embrace. His muscles are rigid and his body doesn’t flow into Remus’s. He simply stands there, his nose pressed into the hollow beneath Remus’s collarbone.

“Nobody can love me,” he finally breathes against the hickey that’s begun to bloom just over where Remus’s heart is.

“You’re bloody ridiculous,” Remus mutters, bending his fingers and scratching the base of his neck in what he hopes is a soothing manner.

“I’m not fucking kidding, Remus,” Sirius spits out, pushing himself away from him once again. His hands clench at his sides as Remus’s face goes through a myriad of expressions, one of which Sirius painfully identifies as one on the verge of giving up. The thought of that plaguing his brain, he presses more, waiting for Remus to snap and finally kick him out of his room. He craves the pain he knows it’ll bring him, the way he’ll fall onto the floor as soon as he reaches his room where he doesn’t have to pretend his knees can bear the weight of his body. He craves the sickle sharp agony of it. The iron-rust taste of blood as he gnaws through his bottom lip.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?” Sirius pushes back.

“Stop thinking whatever you’re thinking. I can see it in your eyes.”

“You’ve never loved me, Moony.”

The accusation is stated as fact and coupled with the use of his pet name, hurts all the much more. Remus doesn’t even know when his fist clenches and rolls forward, colliding with Sirius’s jaw with a sickening crunch. Sirius grins as he spits away blood.

“You haven’t loved anyone,” Sirius continues, his eyes maniac and desperate as Remus looks down at his knuckles in horror. “Did you hear me, Moony? You can’t love anyone because you’re not even human!”

Remus reels backwards as if Sirius had rammed a Bludgeon into him. He’s managed to hit him right where it hurts the most and up until then, Remus hadn’t realized they had been fighting to kill and not just for the sport of it. Or maybe he had realized it and just been in denial because he didn’t believe Sirius could be as cruel as that.

Sirius’s expression has changed from a perverse smugness at the success of his insult to a horrified and shocked one. This time it’s him who reaches out and Remus who pulls back, stepping away and flinching.

“Moony, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that, you know I didn’t.”

Remus is pulling on his shirt now and avoiding Sirius’ eyes. “I think,” he swallows, still not looking at Sirius, “I think it’d be a good idea if you left.”

Sirius waits for a long minute to see if Remus will say anything else but he’s simply turned his back to him and is rearranging some books on his nightstand. His heart sinking and his vision blurring, he grabs his jacket from where he’d flung it onto the chair next to the door and looks back one last time before slowly walking away once again.

*

Remus sinks down into his bed and allows himself to cry silently. Right above his head, the ceiling fan twirls lazily and he lets himself fall prey to its dizzying orbit. His thoughts are too loud and stick to the nooks and crannies of his mind. He needs them to come unstuck, needs them to present themselves in an orderly fashion so that he can see what the right thing to do is.

Sirius has always known how to hurt him. Sirius knows his darkest secrets, his deepest insecurities and his most private and intimate parts that nobody else has ever been privy to. Remus wonders if he suffers from a lack of foresight. He knew, even going in, that Sirius was not perfect. His flaws were big and loud. But his strengths were just as big and loud, perhaps more so, and so Remus never thought too hard about how he was falling for a boy who had the perfect ammunition.

Even now, it’s hard to hate Sirius. Remus hates it.

His brain meanders into memories of the good bits – of Sirius’s hand in his as they walked down Victoria Avenue, of the sharp tang of the lemon soap that Sirius used, of Sirius’s soft cackle at a dog’s antics and then Remus’s own laughter as Sirius himself turned into a dog and began to chase his own tail.

He can’t help the soft smile from spreading across his face. His eyes are closed but he can see Sirius etched onto the back of his eyelids. It has been so many years but Remus still remembers every second of their time together.

Sighing and running a slightly sweaty hand through his hair, Remus gets up and walks to the door. Sirius had mentioned at some point that he was in room 21A, so Remus pads down the hall and up the stairs until he reaches the plain black door.

“Sirius, it’s me,” Remus leans his forehead against it as he knocks quietly. “Please, open up.”

At first there’s no answer but a few minutes later, the door opens just a crack and a pair of stormy, troubled eyes peer out at Remus.

“Can I come in?”

Sirius’s only reply is to pull the door open a little wider. Remus walks in and Sirius shuts it behind him. He’s been chewing on his bottom lip, Remus notices. It’s swollen and red.

“I’m sorry, Remus,” Sirius says once again. The taller man nods, pacing up and down the length of his room. He wants to say it right, he wants to make it so even Sirius understand that he truly means what he says.

“Sirius,” Remus starts, coming to a stop right before him. “I do love you, no matter what you think. You want to push me away and I can let you, or I can fight back and prove how much I care about you.” Remus pauses here, letting his words sink in.

He speaks the next bit slowly and carefully. “I’m gonna fight back. You punch me, I’ll take it. I’ll take it until you’re tired and you can’t do it anymore and you give in and let me love you in the way you deserve to be loved.”

Sirius looks like Remus has broken him into a million pieces. His mouth trembles and his hands are shaking. Taking this as a good sign, Remus steps forward and takes his hands, holding them until they stop trembling.

“I know you’re afraid and that that’s what’s making you so acidic and nasty,” he whispers.

“I’m so sorry, Remus,” Sirius breaks into sobs as the taller man pulls him into a bone-crushing hug, rubbing his back soothingly.

“I’m fucked up,” Sirius pulls back and wipes his face, sinking down onto the edge of his bed. “You’re the first man who made me feel. You were never just empty sex. When I held your body to mine, when I kissed the damp curve of your neck feverishly, I wasn’t just looking to come. I was chasing something more real than that. I wanted to whisper sentimental shit into your skin and paint your spine with loving caresses instead of the rough scratches I was used to.”

Remus feels his breath catch in his throat as the pent up emotion crashes over him like a tornado. “Oh, Padfoot,” he murmurs into his mouth as Sirius leans in for a slow, but desperate kiss. It’s dark in the room and they fumble for each other’s buttons. As shirts come off and they settle into Remus’s bed properly, Sirius stops him with a finger to his mouth and hesitates for a minute.

“I want to take it slow, Moony,” he whispers, eyes bright and feverish.

Remus swallows and nods and pulls him close, cradling his body to his chest. Sirius buries his face in Remus’s skin and breathes quietly, hands curled around Remus’s waist and one leg thrown over his. It’s the first time Sirius has felt completely okay while being held – his heart isn’t beating fast and his thoughts aren’t those of wanting to escape. With Remus scratching at the base of his neck lightly, Sirius feels his eyes flutter close.

“Moony?” he murmurs, the vowels long and stretchy in his mouth.

“Hmm?”

Sirius hesitates. He’s never said the words but he knows he feels it. He twirls his finger around a sparse curl on Remus’s chest and then taps at the skin over his breastbone, a slow steady rhythm of three beats.

“I –“ he starts, swallowing hard. Here with Remus, he feels safer than he ever has. He should be able to say it then, right?

“Shhh,” Remus hushes him and buries his nose in Sirius’s hair. “You don’t have to say it if you’re not ready.”

Sirius tilts his head so he can look up at him with worried eyes. “But I want to say it, Moony.”

“And you will. One day,” Remus smiles gently.

Sirius bites his lip as if thinking and then takes a deep breath. “You know I’ve always thought therapy is hogwash. But I want to try it.” Remus’s smile is the biggest he’s ever seen. “I want to get better, Moony.”

“Oh, baby, I’m here for you every step of the way,” Remus murmurs against his mouth, showering him with soft kisses.

Sirius laughs at the alien pet name and Remus frowns playfully. “Not okay?”

“It’s just new, that’s all,” Sirius tells him. “Doesn’t mean I don’t like it,” he adds, wriggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Remus smiles and then lets out a small, sad sigh. “Padfoot,” he starts, registering the slight panic in Sirius’s eyes at his tone but appreciating the fact that Sirius doesn’t give in to it. “I need to be honest with you.”

“You’re being a little scary, Remus,” Sirius whispers.

“I’m sorry, but I need to say some stuff,” Remus says. “It’s been seven years, Sirius, and for many of them, I was very sad.”

“Moony,” Sirius’s voice breaks and he’s not sure what to say next.

“I just need you to know that there’s a lot of sadness in me. And it may come out at some points. I might lash out at you or I might do stupid things,” Remus’s voice wavers too. “I care about you Sirius, but there’s a lot of history here that we need to resolve.”

“Couples therapy,” Sirius breathes. “Please.”

“We’ll think about it later, okay? I just wanted you to know,” Remus rubs a thumb over the slant of Sirius’s sharp cheekbone, his fingers finding their way to his curls.

“I understand,” Sirius tells him, leaning his cheek into his hand. “Please, if you need time or space, I understand.” Remus smiles in return and pulls him up for a kiss.

“Thank you, Sirius,” Remus murmurs against his mouth.

 

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr @ myheartliesin221b :)


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